ANN ARBOR, MI — Juneteenth, a day celebrating Black freedom from slavery in the United States, is now an official city holiday in Ann Arbor.
City Council voted unanimously Tuesday, May 18, in favor of recognizing the holiday that’s celebrated locally and other places around the country the third Saturday each June.
“There’s simply not enough days in the year to do this subject justice,” Mayor Christopher Taylor said. “The harm of slavery and white supremacy persists, it wears and it stresses and it harms our African American community members — every single one of them — every single day.”
Juneteenth is recognized as a holiday or special day of observance in 45 states and it is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S., Sharie Sell, a city human resources employee, told council in a memo.
City leaders and staff will observe the holiday the Friday prior to Juneteenth each year and city hall will be closed that day, the council resolution states. The city estimates it will cost $85,266 in paid time off this year to add the holiday to the city calendar.
The Ann Arbor Branch of the NAACP has held annual Juneteenth celebrations at Wheeler Park since 1994 and President William Hampton said he supports the move to have the city officially recognize the holiday.
But there’s more work to be done, he said.
“Juneteenth represents the day of emancipation of enslaved African Americans after 246 years of involuntary servitude. In my judgment, total freedom remains a work in progress,” Hampton said, discussing the long struggle for equal rights in the areas of housing, employment, public accommodation and economic sustainability.
“This ongoing battle for equality continues. It has now been almost 156 years since the Juneteenth announcement,” he said. “Translation: This means it would take until the year 2111, 90 years from right now, for us to be out of slavery for as long as we were in this unfortunate situation.”
Council Member Lisa Disch, D-1st Ward, noted the holiday commemorates the June 1865 announcement by Union Army General Gordon Granger, who landed in the port city of Galveston and proclaimed freedom from slavery in Texas, following the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Union General Ulysses S. Grant two months earlier.
That was preceded by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years earlier, and the “time chasm” between those two events became the first of many instances of “justice delayed is justice denied,” states the council resolution recognizing Juneteenth.
“This holiday is really important because it commemorates a day that’s rightfully celebrated as a day of liberation, but that also is a reminder ... that equality before the law doesn’t guarantee equality in fact,” Disch said. “And so I hope that this holiday ... will inspire us to gather together and do further work and action toward the goal of equality in fact.”
Passing the Juneteenth resolution is a step in the right direction, but in no way is it “mission accomplished,” said Council Member Ali Ramlawi, D-5th Ward.
“There’s so much work that needs to be done,” he said, adding many people in the community don’t feel treated equally.
The city’s observance of Juneteenth provides a city-sponsored, structured opportunity for Ann Arbor to join together to acknowledge the central and shameful role of slavery and government-structured racism in America’s history and present, Taylor said. It’s an opportunity to recognize the moral imperative to counter slavery’s enduring legacy of race-based discrimination and institutional and individual racism, he said.
“It’s going to be a day for us to come together, a day for us to recognize where we’ve been and how we got here, and to strive to do better,” Taylor said.
Council Member Travis Radina, D-3rd Ward, said he hopes the city’s recognition of Juneteenth can help build on the celebrations the NAACP has hosted for many years.
“I also am just particularly grateful that this is coming at a time when we also chose to invest in equity tonight by actually unanimously supporting the hiring of an equity officer to continue moving this forward,” he said.
“Because while Juneteenth, I think, serves as a really important day for us as a community to reflect on our nation’s history and how that history continues to shape and influence our society and culture today, it is just that — a day of education, a day of celebrating the Black community and the contributions that have been made to our community,” Radina said.
Much more work needs to be done, and acknowledging the history of racism and inequality is critical to overcoming it, Radina said.
With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, a virtual celebration is being planned for Juneteenth this year, Hampton said.
MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:
Black Lives Matter murals coming to Ypsilanti ahead of Juneteenth celebration
The story of Albert Wheeler, Ann Arbor’s first and only Black mayor
Ann Arbor cuts deer cull, adds funding for Center of the City, Healthy Streets
Ann Arbor police will no longer attend seminars led by controversial ‘killology’ trainer
Ann Arbor police oversight commission wants to study potential racial bias in traffic stops
The Link LonkMay 19, 2021 at 01:37AM
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Juneteenth now an Ann Arbor holiday, but NAACP says battle for equality continues - MLive.com
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